


Watching

by Megpie71



Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-23
Updated: 2003-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megpie71/pseuds/Megpie71
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I figure every ranger has a hobby.  Some carve, some (particularly in the north) smoke.  Others fletch arrows.  This one just takes advantage of the surroundings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching

It's an exercise in a peculiar sort of trust. To sit there and wait, stand and watch. To become part of the surroundings. To blend in, not stand out. 

In my boyhood, I hadn't paid much attention to birds. I'd been more interested in the cats that roamed the streets of Minas Tirith, and roamed through the Citadel. Then I became interested in their prey, in the small rodents and shrews which occupied the back corners of the store-rooms. Father never minded me going where I would. Truth be told, I don't think he even noticed. 

He noticed when I started showing an interest in the hounds, hawks and horses, although the most he did was grunt, and return to whatever it was he was reading. He didn't seem to care when I tamed my first hawk (Boromir used to sneak me out some food while I waited in the mews for the hawk to feed from my hand). When I broke my arm falling from Boromir's warhorse, all Father did was grunt and send me to the Houses of Healing. 

I remember my childhood as a string of attempts to be noticed. A string of attempts to step out of my brother's shadow, to be recognised for myself. Father noticed Boromir, but he never seemed to notice me. When he thought of me, if he thought of me at all, it was an afterthought. As far as I could tell, he thought of me as a younger version of Boromir. 

I learned to find my own triumphs, my own small victories. I learned my way around the citadel, following the cats. I learned to read the behaviour of the hawks, the horses, the hounds. The men around Father and Boromir. I learned to watch the women in the background, stealthy and quiet as mice. I learned the ways of the game of predator and prey - that the cats could hunt the mice, but they would never hunt them to extinction. That the mice would breed and breed, and were the cats not there to keep them in check (there was a corner of the Citadel which could only be reached by climbing down on a rope - the number of mice in there was phenomenal) they would breed until they had to eat one another. I watched, and learned a lot of things my tutors would never have thought of. I couldn't tell Father of these - he would merely grunt, and ask me how I was doing in my swordplay, and why couldn't I be more like my brother? 

I told Boromir about them, though. He liked to listen. 

I was twenty, and just come to manhood when Father finally noticed me as someone who wasn't Boromir. He grunted, shrugged, and handed me over to the Captain-General, saying "You decide what to do with him." 

Luckily, as I said, Boromir had liked to listen. He assigned me to Ithilien. "It will suit your talents, Faramir," he told me. I wasn't certain - I'd been trained as an infantryman, and I was only middling with a bow - but my brother was Captain-General, and I had to obey.

Here I had to re-learn stealth and silence. I had to re-learn my attention to even the smallest thing. The flight of a bird takes on a whole new meaning when it can spell the difference between life and death. The difference between silence and birdsong can be the difference between ambush and survival. I learned to watch. To wait. To observe all that happened around me, to be alert for all the tiny changes. 

I started to spend whole days and nights out in the wilderness alone. I'd choose a spot, settle down, and just watch the daily routine of the animals and birds. I'd watch waterholes, stream beds, small coppices of trees. I'd learn the animals and plants there, learn the webs of lives and lifetimes. 

When I returned home, I sketched sparrows as they pecked for crumbs in the kitchen courtyard. I fed the pigeons, watched their funny walk. When I visited my uncle, it was seagulls. Occasionally, I would startle the birds at times, making them take flight all of a rush, leaving me with nothing. A rushing of wings, like a rushing of water, then silence.

It was in the wilds of Ithilien I found my greatest challenge. It started as a jest, nothing more. One of the rangers teased me, saying that should I stay out in the wilds for too long, I'd be mistaken for a tree and the birds would start nesting on me. Then where would I be, he asked, for I'd have to stay in the one spot without moving, until I turned to a tree in truth and took root there. The jest caused laughter, in which I joined with a will. Yet the notion stayed with me. I'd always been hard to notice - it was only the animals around the Citadel who'd noticed me in my childhood. Could I bring this unnoticeability to the point where the birds would roost on me?

So now, in the quiet moments between manoeuvres, I spend my time sitting in the forest, waiting for the birds to trust me enough to use me to roost upon. The sparrows, as always, are the boldest. One pecked at my boots yesterday. 

I don't think I shall tell Boromir of this. While he listens, I suspect sometimes he doesn't understand.


End file.
